Heading home for the holidays can be expensive, especially this year… but it doesn’t have to be. We’re in the heart of holiday flight booking season, so Gunnar and Kyle give all their best tips for saving on flights on those high-demand holiday season flights. The guys go through when to book your trips (spoiler alert: sooooon), where to target for the best deal, and when to turn to your points and miles to get home for the holidays. Plus, the guys gush about Japan Airlines again, welcome the return of cheap flights to Europe, and revisit Kyle’s Hilton vs. Hyatt take.
Heading home for the holidays can be expensive, especially this year… but it doesn’t have to be. We’re in the heart of holiday flight booking season, so Gunnar and Kyle give all their best tips for saving on flights on those high-demand holiday season flights. The guys go through when to book your trips (spoiler alert: sooooon), where to target for the best deal, and when to turn to your points and miles to get home for the holidays. Plus, the guys gush about Japan Airlines again, welcome the return of cheap flights to Europe, and revisit Kyle’s Hilton vs. Hyatt take.
Thanks to our sponsor, Monarch! Go to Monarch.com and use code “THRIFTY” to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50!
Join the conversation! Sign up for the free Thrifty Traveler Podcast Slack community today.
00:00 - Our points & miles Santa Claus
00:40 - Advice for traveling over the holidays
01:50 - Julius in Malta welcomes us back to the show
02:50 - Something Hot: Hilton’s new card offers
06:30 - Something Hotter: Cheap flights to Europe return!
08:25 - Something Hottest: JAL miles keep getting better!
13:50 - A word form our sponsor: Monarch!
15:00 - What’s the best time to book holiday flights?
18:00 - And what the heck is going on with flight prices?
23:45 - Tips for finding cheaper flights over the holidays
31:50 - Holiday sweet spots: Traveling abroad & biz class
36:40 - Listener Question: Our flight cancellation playbook
41:15 - On the Spot: What’s the ideal Thanksgiving trip?
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar, and with me, as always, he's holly, he's jolly, and he's coming down the chimney with Japan Airlines miles, cheap flights to Europe, and some Hilton free nights. It's your travel Santa Claus. It's Kyle Potter. Kyle, welcome to the show. You wanna know how many Japan Airlines miles I have after getting a little booksy this weekend? Oh, it's gotta be single digits at this point. Six. Six. Six JAL miles. I am flush. You are feeling festive. Today on the show, we are talking all about holiday travel. We're gonna go over when to book, when to fly, all the tools that we use to beat high airfare around the holidays. Uh, I'm gonna spoil one of those tips, Kyle, and that is to try and fly on the holiday itself to save money and to save travel headaches. So I wanna find something out as we get started. Have you done this? No. You've never done it? No, I haven't. Ugh. Uh, you know, in, in large part because, A, all of our family is around Minnesota, so when we're traveling for the holidays, we're driving, not flying, and B, we've never taken the advice that we give travelers every single year around this time of year, which is this is a great time to travel abroad, uh, to do things a little bit differently for the holidays because international airfare is typically quite a bit cheaper when you travel over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we've just never done it 'cause, again, back to A, we're always hanging out with family near Minnesota. Yeah. Usual- I've spent many, uh, Christmases in the Delta Sky Club at O'Hare, which is actually such a lovely time to be at an airport lounge j- or an airport. We talk about it all the time how Saturdays are the best time at airports. When you're there on the holiday, it's like that on steroids. It's even better. Everyone's chill and quiet and relaxed. It's, uh... Traveling on the holiday itself, some of the best advice that we can give. All right, today on the show we've got some Hilton card offers, the return of cheap Europe airfare, Japan Airlines turning heads once again, and everything you need to know about booking holiday travel. All that and more. Hello from the sunny Mediterranean off the coast of Malta. Welcome back to Thrifty Traveler. Okay, welcoming us back to the show this week was Julius on a yacht off the coast of Malta. We're really getting our first shot of fall weather here in, uh, Minneapolis this morning. So seeing Julius with his sun shades on, with his sun shades on, with his sunglasses on- That's a word ... in the middle of the Mediterranean really extended my summer there for a few minutes. And being on a yacht is a sign that Julius took your number one piece of advice for people, which is don't be poor. That's right. Yeah. Very smart, Julius. If you wanna send us your welcome back video like Julius did, upload it at thriftytraveler.com/voicemail. And I'll do a call-out for this, too. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast that you hear at the end, if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. Let's get into something hot and something cold, Kyle. It's usually a look at the good and the bad news out there for travelers this week. But I couldn't find anything cold, so we're doing something hot, something hotter, and something hottest. Is that okay? Are you all right with this format change? We can do it th- just this once. Okay. We will start, then, with something hot. Um, you started this podcast 80 episodes ago by convincing me that Hilton is at least on par with Hyatt, a take that's had more ups and downs than the Chicago Bears in that same timeframe. The best argument you made was about these uncapped Hilton free night rewards, which I've used since you convinced me to book some of the best hotel nights of my life. Right now, Hilton and Amex are out with new expanded credit card bonus offers that include one of these free night awards on, on top of a good chunk of points and very attainable spending requirements. So I wanna go over the nuts and bolts of these offers in a second, but- If you were thinking about moving from Hyatt to Hilton, is there ever been a better time than right now? No, because I do really think that the, especially now after all of the negative changes that both Hilton and many other hotel chains have made, Hilton's biggest differentiator today is still these uncapped free night awards. So most hotel chains will cap what kinds of properties you can book with their free night certificates. At Hyatt, it's, like, 15 to 18,000 points per night. At Marriott, it might be 35,000 points per night. On their top, top tier cards, it might be 85,000 points per night. In either case, those certificates aren't gonna get you, you know, top-dollar properties in almost every single case. And with Hilton, you can book properties that cost as much as 250,000 points per night, regardless of what the cash price is, so long as there is standard room award availability. So whether that's 35,000 points or 250,000 points, it is crazy how valuable these certificates are. And, you know, maybe once, sometimes twice a year, we see Hilton roll out these bonus offers where they're not just upping the ante with points, they're throwing in one of these free night certificates. So that is a huge, huge win for these cards. Yeah, these free nights are really amazing. Okay, so these offers I'll go through right now, they end January 13th, so you do have some runway here to try and figure out your card situation, and also to sign up to, uh, put your holiday spend on some of these to hit these pretty quick as well. The bottom level Hilton Honors Amex card has a 70,000-mile bonus and a free night after $2,000 in spend in six months. The Surpass card, the next level up, has 130,000 bonus and a free night after 3,000 in spend in six months. And the top tier, Aspire, has a best ever 200,000-point bonus and a free night every year after $6,000 in spend in your first six months. There's also a business card that gives you 150,000 and a free night after 8,000 in spend in six months. Um, the spending requirements are v- very reasonable on these, and you get that free night as soon as you hit that spending requirement, along with some bonus points. Pretty amazing. Yeah, uh, to me, the standout here is the Hilton Surpass Card. It's got a reasonable annual fee, but earning 130,000 points and one of these free nights right off the bat after hitting the spending requirement, you can get so much value out of that. Again, like we always say, credit cards are serious business. You h- need to, y- y- whether it's $2,000 or $3,000 or 8 in six months that you need to spend in order to earn these, you still have to do it responsibly. But if you can, this is the time to at least, uh, dip your toe into the pool that is Hilton Honors, as you have w- so wisely done. Yeah, take a look if you're thinking about it. All right, let's move on to something hotter. So Kyle, since the war in Iran started at the end of February, we've been in this frustrating ridge of high airfare due to the rising cost of oil. If you search for flights to Savannah or San Francisco today, I'm afraid to tell you that things are still pretty nasty out there. But if you search for flights to Venice or Vienna instead, it's like it's 2024 again out there right now. Uh, I wrote a piece for the website last week outlining how the day after Labor Day, the fever broke on high flight prices to Europe. We're seeing fares in the 500s round-trip to destinations all over Europe for this fall and winter, some fares even dropping into the 400s, and then we even saw Iceland and some Scandinavia stuff in the 300s round-trip. Uh, so Kyle, like me, did you, uh, burst into happy tears when you opened your, uh, Google Flights Explore map to see all these fares back to normal? Yeah, but you know it doesn't take much for me to do that, right? The only two guys on the planet who are crying at their Google Flights screen . There's gotta be. There- there are dozens of us, I bet. There must be. Yeah. There has to be. No, this is, this is great news, and it's just so weird that, uh, in so many cases now, it is not just cheaper, but in some cases significantly cheaper to fly to Europe than it is to fly, like, 500, 600 miles within the U.S. It's just crazy how big the spread is on some of these flights, and I, I don't know what that says about where travel demand is at, if maybe we're starting to see travel demand drop internationally and people are kinda restricting their travels just to what they absolutely need to do, like, for the holidays, for instance. I don't know. This is, uh, probably gonna be a problem for future us to start to dig into. But for now, the upside is, is that for fall and winter travel over to Europe, fares are as cheap as we've seen them since, uh, yeah, probably February. Yeah. More seats than butts flying to Europe right now, and you could be one of those butts, Kyle, if you really wanted to be, for $500. I have no words for you. All right, fine. We'll move on to something hottest this week. Uh, I'll start really simple here, Kyle. Name one airline mileage program that's better than Japan Airlines Mileage Bank right now. I forgot what Gun Air miles are called- ... but that would be the only one that could possibly, 'cause you get that free kokoni on board, right? That's right. Yeah. One free kokoni per flight. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there, there is none. It's, it is ... We have made the case for the better part of a year now that Japan Airlines Mileage Bank miles are an absolute gold mine, criminally underrated, are worthy of your attention and then some, and they have only gotten better. We've only learned more and more and seen more value and also had more avenues to earn these miles and seen transfer bonuses. It is unquestionably the single most valuable program in the world right now, period. So tell me what's new this week. Who's the newest, uh, transfer partner? Yeah, as of, uh, Sunday, um, Citi ThankYou points, so if you're earning points from, like, the Citi Strata Premier or the Citi Strata Elite card, you can now transfer those points, typically one to one to Japan Airlines, but through late October you get a 30% bonus. So if you're sitting on a stash of Citi points, now is the time to look into Japan Airlines. Yeah. Okay, so, uh, for people who are uninitiated, who haven't been listening to the show every single week and heard you gushing about Japan Airlines, what are some of your favorite, uh, redemptions that you can make? Yeah, for the people who do listen every week, I'm so sorry- ... we have to do this again. There is just so much value here. Uh, of course, flying Japan Airlines itself, to be able to book business class for as low as 55,000 miles each way and under $400 in taxes and fees right now from anywhere in the United States to Japan. If you can't find those ultra low rates, it's easier to find, um, rates of 75 to 85,000 miles each way, in some cases north of 100,000, but with one of these transfer bonuses you're still coming out way, way ahead, especially when, you know, using miles from other airlines like American or Alaska. You're not gonna see these Japan Airlines business class award availability over to Tokyo and back at all anymore. Just really doesn't exist. So that, it really makes Japan Airlines miles shine. Where I think they're even better is for booking partner airlines. Of course, you know, o- other One World airlines like American and Alaska and British Airways and Cathay Pacific and others, um, but also some other airlines that are not in that alliance, including LATAM, so flying down to South America, uh, Air France, they have a strange one-off partnership with Air France despite the fact that Air France is part of the SkyTeam alliance, and then Emirates as well. To be able to book for fewer miles than almost any airline would charge with a fraction, if any, of the surcharges that those programs would charge. So I'll give you this. I got booksy over the weekend. I'm taking my sister, uh, to London for the first time for her 40th birthday next year. British Airways flying into London. If you're booking with British Airways, obvious, you're paying almost 90,000 miles each way, and typically $400 or more in surcharges from Chicago to London in this case. I booked that exact same flight for 42,000 miles per person and $219, which means I booked the two of us for less than any other airline program would charge for one passenger. That is incredible. Yeah, it's so good. I think the Air France stuff deserves to be double clicked on, too. Just the flying Air France business class from LAX to Tahiti for 85,000 Japan Airlines miles round trip is something that I really just, is, is stuck in my brain to the point where I'm gonna, might have to make something work for a trip next year just 'cause it's, it's such a crazy good deal and, you know, such a, a really fun way to get there and back and that those Tahiti flights aren't terribly long, but man, that's such a good rate. And, um, it would just be really nice to be able to do that in a comfortable seat for, uh, an amount of miles that honestly is close to what you'd be paying in economy, too. Yeah, and I mean, the best part of that is that round trip discount because if you book that one way, it's 60,000 miles from LA to Tahiti. Round trip, it's not 120,000 miles, it's 85 because of the quirky way that JAL actually measures the total distance of your trip rather than measuring each segment separately, which also means you can book flights or trips with connections without paying a fortune more in s- in miles as you would using a program like British Airways. And then again, you know, our premium team found a ton of award space a couple of weeks ago flying Air France both to Tahiti, but as well as to Paris for, you know, in many cases as low as 42,000 miles each way and $5.60 when Air France now charges at least 75,000 miles and close to $400 one way for those exact same business class redemptions. Yeah. It's, it's crazy how much value there is here, and especially as we've seen Bilt, Capital One, Rove, and now Citi join the fold. This, this cannot last much longer. Something is gonna give here as more attention is getting put on this program, as more people are transferring their miles there. Japan Airlines is going to have to close some of these loopholes and raise award rates. I wouldn't be shocked if it happened before the end of the year. Yeah. Get it while it's hot. This will be the last time we'll talk about Japan Airlines for at least six days. For at least six days. Okay. Yeah, I, I make no promises beyond that. Perfect. All right, let's talk about holiday flights and how to get the best deal and when you should book, but first we're gonna take a quick break All right. It's time for the Extra Mile where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic, and it's inspired, as always, by our awesome Extra Mile newsletter. It hits your inboxes every weekday morning, giving you the latest travel news, some fun deep dives, and all the holiday travel news you need to know this year and every year. Sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/extramile. So this week on the Extra Mile we are electing Kyle Potter the Whoville holiday Cheermeister. You're sitting in the Chair of Cheer at Who-belation as elected by the people of Whoville. I love the Ron Howard/Jim Carrey Grinch movie so much, Kyle. Who is, who's the Grinch in our Whoville here at Thrifty Traveler? You are if you've been elected holiday Cheermeister. Oh. Cindy Lou Who nominates the Grinch, "I nominate the Grinch," and then the Grinch becomes the holiday Cheermeister. You have lost me completely. Okay. We'll have to watch that movie together this year. It's one of my favorites. Um- Great. Can't wait. Let's get into how and when to book your flights for the holidays. We're gonna start with the most pressing question, Kyle. What's the best time to book holiday flights? I think as people are listening to this, probably now is the best advice that we could give. If you wanna stop this podcast at that, you probably can. I think it's... There's no silver bullet. There's no crystal ball we have. Flight prices are all over the place, but I would say generally speaking, as we get closer to the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, and to a lesser extent Christmas, they are only getting worse. And as we'll talk about, the conditions that are driving flight prices right now are looking a little grim, which means that it's only likely to get much worse as we get even closer to Thanksgiving. Yeah, I believe your notes here in the rundown say, "... not great." That... Yep, it's not great. Sorry. Um, so let's... Uh, first I wanna dig into some data 'cause we get data every year from Google Flights. Uh, and they tell you kinda when you're most likely to find the lowest flight prices for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. For Thanksgiving- The best prices are gonna be found, uh, between right now and about October 15th. So you are truly on the clock for Thanksgiving flights. I booked mine many, many months ago, and I don't regret it for a second. Uh, I've not seen- I've put my Google Flights price alert on there. I have not seen it go down a dollar since the day we booked. That is a, a high flight price, especially around Thanksgiving. For Christmas, Google Flights says it's between 54 and 78 days before travel, meaning the best deals are usually gone by November 1st, as a general rule for Christmas travel. So I would also say take Google Flights data with a grain of salt. Google Flights isn't saying you're getting a good deal in these windows. They're just saying you're doing all right for getting absolutely fleeced by holiday flight prices, right? This is not like, uh, you're, you're getting the sizzler of the century here. Yeah, this doesn't mean you're gonna log in right now or, you know, around November 1st looking at Christmastime flights and love what you see. You're probably gonna hate it. Yeah. But you're gonna hate it a lot more by waiting even longer. Right. Exactly. So I would say Kyle's advice is a good one. Get on it right now. At least get prepared right now. Um, okay, so can we talk about just the current state of flight prices and like you said in our rundown, it's not great, but what are you seeing out there? Well, this falls during a pretty problematic time, let's call it, for airfare, where just the entire landscape is not looking great. You know, a couple of months ago, we were talking about how jet fuel prices were trending down, and that was resulting in, you know, more flight deals, definitely domestically, than we had seen for, you know, the first part of the spring and into the early summer, and that has really turned around. You know, n- as we're talking right now, jet fuel prices are about as high as they've been since early April of 2026, you know, a month and change into the war in Iran. That isn't great. Um, and then as you look ahead into the other factors that are driving flight prices, we're only getting closer into the holidays, the typically the most expensive time of year to travel. And at the same time, underneath all of this, airlines are now talking about, as jet fuel prices are creeping back up and have continued to trend up for the last three months, they might end up cutting capacity. They may end up, uh, cutting their schedules into, you know, the m- mid to early or mid to late fall and into the winter Less supply of flights is only going to drive prices higher. All of these things are driving prices higher. So data from the fare watching company Autopilot says that Thanksgiving fares just within the last couple of weeks are up 15-plus percent, uh, in economy on average. For Christmas, over that same, you know, two to three-week, uh, time difference, they're up 12% on average. These are just averages. I think in a lot of cases you're gonna see even steeper fare increases, and as we get further into September and October, that's likely to only get worse. Yeah, this is unfortunately a byproduct of, uh, fewer seats and more butts, which is not what you wanna see when you're trying to book flights. Okay, so if you are on the hunt for holiday fares right now, what are some of the things you're doing to prepare, Kyle? I mean, the first thing I'm looking at is what points and miles can I use because, you know, while it m- you might want to use whatever credit card points or airline miles you have stashed away for a, let's call it sexier redemption, some big long-haul trip, I mean, the point of these things is to travel more for less. And if, you know, getting home for Thanksgiving or Christmas is looking unaffordable, take some inventory of what you have, start exploring those redemptions, and see the rates you would get. I would say especially looking into using these partner airline workarounds, of using Japan Airlines miles or British Airways miles to fly American, or using Alaska miles to fly American for as low as 4,500 miles each way. I would say I've been pleasantly surprised at despite what is happening with domestic airfare and how high and insulting in some cases it's gotten, the ability to book with partner airline miles is maybe not as strong as it's ever been, but it's been pretty darn good in my experience. Yeah, pretty good. Uh, I've been looking at it myself for Christmas flights. I'm, I'm doing all these things that I'm, uh, recommending to you all right now, by the way. I'm on the hunt for Christmas flights. So why are you asking me about this? Well, because you're the expert. How about I put it to you? You- What are, what else are you doing? I'm set at, basically I am monitoring my Google Flights price alerts like a madman, which is pretty much every day of my existence anyway. But because the Christmas flights are such a high-leverage situation, it's, you know, I, I'm trying to fly to Chicago, which is my hometown. It's six hours in the car with a one-and-a-half-year-old. At that point, that sounds like the worst day of my whole life. So I would really love to fly if I can make it work. So right now I've got Google Flights price alerts set up on pretty much every single flight of the day, uh, between Chicago and Minneapolis and vice versa throughout all the days that I wanna, could possibly fly. Of course, leaving on Christmas Day is probably our best option. That's gonna be what the cheapest flight is most likely, so I've got lots of price alerts set up around that. But mostly I'm, you know, just looking at flexible fares only, especially around the holidays, and I'm looking at, you know, just trying to get everybody in my life on the same page about what we're actually doing so that I'm ready to book when these fares actually do come down. But it's been a rollercoaster. I, you know, every time there's just one flight that I'm really hoping for that I've been waiting out, and I'm breaking my own rule. I didn't book something already, so now I'm just kinda watching and waiting, knowing that, uh, the six hours in the car looms if I don't get it right. So you talked about having booked Thanksgiving already and not seeing price drops. I'm curious, so you, you mentioned you're booking flexibly. You're not booking basic economy so that you can rebook if prices drop, but you're not seeing that on Thanksgiving. Is there any point at which you're like, "You know what? I'm gonna save the however many dollars, and I'm gonna book basic because I don't think that prices are gonna drop"? I mean, at this point for Thanksgiving, I, I think you're at that point. Yeah. Prices are not dropping anymore for Thanksgiving. Um, I would, I would be shocked if it did, and I'm sorry if I cost you a couple of bucks because of that prediction, but Thanksgiving, I mean, we're at, we're at the tipping point right now where I doubt you're gonna see a, a dramatic, you know, price decrease, uh, unless you're willing to change the days you fly. Yeah. I... What I've been telling people is that we don't have a crystal ball. Flight prices are unpredictable, but you are far more likely to see significant price increases f- especially for Thanksgiving, than you are to see even modest price decreases for traveling over the hol- over- for traveling over Thanksgiving in particular, and I would say to a lesser extent for Christmas and New Year's as well. We're just in that season where it's just far more likely that prices are going to get even uglier, and I would much rather urge people to book now and be okay with the price that they paid than wait for the slim chance that it's gonna get a little bit better Yeah. Okay, we've been talking a bit about all of these tips, but just some, some surefire way- not surefire. There's nothing surefire in travel, but some, uh, smart ways to try and beat some of this higher airfare. We talked about flying on the holidays themselves. It's something that I usually try to do. I would also just say aim for flying at inconvenient times or on quieter days. So, like, for instance, on Thanksgiving, I always fly home the Saturday to avoid that Sunday, which is always the worst travel day of the year, the busiest travel day of the year, and often the most expensive travel day of the year. Um, when I think about Christmas, especially this year, it's on a Friday, uh, so the 26th and 27th are gonna be a Saturday, Sunday, probably two of the worst travel days of the year there, too, just busyness-wise. Uh, but that also means that Monday, Tuesday, the 28th and 29th, are primed for much lower fares and that kinda quieter experience, and the fact that it comes on a Monday and Tuesday usually means that fares are lower as well. And then, uh, we got data from AutoPilot again. The cheapest day to fly for Thanksgiving is, of course, Thanksgiving Day itself. The average low fare on Thanksgiving is half that of flying on the Sunday after Thanksgiving or the Tuesday or Wednesday before. Those are usually the busiest days, that Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday of Thanksgiving week. So just by avoiding those days, you're gonna get half price, essentially. I, I would bet that s- the Sunday after Thanksgiving is going to be the most expensive travel day of the year. The, the most expensive day of all of 2026. It's gonna get really ugly. If you can avoid that day, if you can fly home on Saturday or even Monday or Tuesday after, you're gonna save yourself a boatload of money. Yeah, you couldn't pay me. I, I don't even wanna look at my, uh, flighty app that day. I don't wanna do anything. No, no travel should cross my mind on that Sunday. Um, you also mentioned another great way to beat high prices is just using your partner points and miles. I t- I said I was looking at these flights to Chicago over Christmas. The cash fares are crazy, uh, so are the SkyMiles rates, but if I use Alaska miles to book American Airlines flights, it's 4,500 miles each way. If I do the same with Flying Blue miles to book Delta, it's 6,000 miles each way. These, these rates are flat rates, right? When you book with a partner, they're, they're not variable like Delta who's saying, "Oh, by the way, this flight is gonna be 40,000 SkyMiles 'cause the cash rate is over $500." So it, these flat rates are really a great way to kinda get around these nastier fares, and it's something I'm definitely looking into, but I also have a companion pass to burn, so I don't know what to do. Yeah. I booked, um, uh, not for Christmas, uh, earlier in December, I booked some Delta-operated flights using Air France miles, uh, to get out to Boston, where cash prices are really gross, and they have been for the last two years and change. And I was surprised to be able to book that for under 15,000 miles each way. And then I thought, "Well, okay, how, just how much worse would it be if I were traveling around Christmas?" Spoiler alert, it was much, much worse, and yet every single day in the month of December, you could book a one-way from Minneapolis to Boston and back from Boston to Minneapolis using Air France miles on, on Delta, despite the fact that Delta was charging 500-plus miles each way and, like, 42,000 SkyMiles each way for those exact same flights. So, you know, being able to book Delta-operated flights with either Air France or Virgin Atlantic. If you're an American hub, Alaska is definitely the first place to look if you have those miles. Otherwise, I would say maybe trying to use Finnair miles. It's a little bit wonky. It requires calling in or using online chat to book, but it is well worth it for the savings. Japan Airlines, in some cases, especially if you can book round-trip on those American-operated flights. United's a little bit trickier. You can check out, uh, Avianca LifeMiles if you can transfer those from Amex or Capital One and Citi. Um, Air India is the cheapest way now to book United-operated flights. The only real way for us to earn those is through Rove Miles, so if you're earning miles by using their shopping portal, check that out. Uh, it's a little bit trickier with United, and then Southwest, I think, is just you get what you get with Southwest Rapid Rewards, but if you have Southwest service at your home airport, just check into that as well if you've got those points or Chase points you can transfer. Not gonna lie, I was today years old when I learned about the Air India United thing. I never thought about that one time. Well You're smarter now This is why you come to this podcast. Um, okay, here's something that maybe not everybody is gonna have the stomach for, but if you can hit the spending requirement in time, this sign-up bonus cr- offer on the Delta SkyMiles Reserve card right now is the perfect holiday flight hack right now. So it's an uncapped pair of round-trip Delta Comfort flight certificates for travel in the lower 48, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, along with a 50,000 Sky Mile bonus, but it's only after you hit $10,000 in spend in the first six months. So if you think you have a big, uh, expense coming up, you think you can hit $10,000 in spend in short order here, you can book yourself a round trip, two round-trip f- tickets, Delta Comfort home for the holidays and back. It's a pretty amazing deal if you can actually make that spend work, um, just because this, this special sign-up bonus offer that we've kinda never seen before, uh, is really kinda perfectly tailored for flights like this that are gonna end up being, you know, two grand, three grand or more round trip. So- And, and even if you weren't going to book Delta Comfort, A, you're getting a, you know, more legroom anyway, great, but in many cases, just a standard economy ticket is going to cost you, for some of these flights over the holidays, close to $1,000 or more per person. So, you know, whether you can knock out this significant spending requirement in time to be able to book Thanksgiving, that's probably not realistic at this point. Certainly Christmas is possible if you do have a big home renovation or a ton of bills coming due or you make quarterly estimated tax payments, whatever. Um, or looking ahead to next year, because, you know, it's more likely than not that next year's holiday travel prices are gonna be pretty gross, too. They kind of always are. Yeah, exactly. It ... I, I heard from, uh, our boss, Nick Sarati, saying that- This is also just a really good hack for spring break. Like if you're- Yeah if you're looking at spring break flights where everybody in your town, everybody at your home airport is getting off, you know, school on the same exact day and coming back on the same exact day, boom, two round-trip Delta Comfort tickets will really take the sting off of that. Yeah, with the caveat that it only works for the lower 48, uh, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. So Hawaii, Mexico, Caribbean is off limits for these particular certificates. Yeah. Uh, the last thing I'm doing w- in my search for Christmas flights right now, just emptying out the rest of my toolbox. I said I have a, a Delta companion certificate that I get from the SkyMiles Platinum card every year that I have to use sometime, uh, before next spring, so I'm looking to do that. Um, I always, my wife gets one, too, with her SkyMiles card, and we always use that on Thanksgiving. That's exactly what we did this year. Um, if you have e-credits sitting there, make sure you just go double-check w- where your e-credits are. That could help take the sting off of your flight prices. And then just look into some other modes of transportation, especially if you're on the East Coast and all your cities are so close together. Can you take the train? Can you drive or take the train to the nearest city that's gonna offer you a much cheaper rate to fly somewhere that you wanna go? Uh, mess with those departure and destination airports on Google Flights, and see if by changing one of those you can save a few hundred bucks, and that it might be worth it to hop in the car or take the train to go, uh, change your fortunes there, too. Yeah. Remember, Google Flights allows you to search for up to seven, uh, departure and destination airports. So, you know, if you're trying to get to New- New York City or to Chicago, and you typically fly into Newark or you typically fly into Midway, check the other airports in that area. Add them to your search because in some cases the price differences can be surprisingly significant. Okay, let's talk about some holiday sweet spots because while these domestic fares we're talking about, like I said, if, if you're flying to, to Syracuse or Savannah, it might be a little rough out there. But it's not always rough everywhere. What are some of your favorite holiday flight sweet spots? I mean, uh, the biggest one still is heading abroad, I think especially for Thanksgiving. If you, if you're really grossed out by the domestic flight prices to get home for the holiday, consider do some- doing something different this year. I mean, we are still, our premium team is still finding dirt cheap international fares with travel over Thanksgiving despite the fact that it's less than two months away now, or it's basically two months away, right? This is the point at which typically we start to see international airfare creep up, and that is not happening right now. So get it while the getting is good if you wanna try something different for Thanksgiving. Yeah, another shout-out to AutoPilot who in a different study showed that for domestic flights, airlines are raising rates across the board, and they're almost exclusively cutting fares internationally at the exact same time. So domestic Thanksgiving flights and Christmas fares rose 8% during the study published on September 1st. At the same time, international flights over Christmas and Thanksgiving fell 9%. Um, Europe, as the, as the study says, quote, "Europe still has more seats than buyers." I like to use butts in seats instead of buyers in seats, but, uh- We know they can do whatever they want. We know. Um, Europe doesn't do Thanksgiving. It's as simple as that, right? And people just, the demand is always gonna be domestically for people wanting to go home to celebrate the holidays. So it's just this sweet spot where you can fly even on those peak days, that Tuesday, Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. Often those will be some cheap fares if you wanna fly to Europe instead of fly home, and often for the same prices. And then, you know, another reason why we love flying over Thanksgiving is it's shoulder season, especially in Europe, where you're gonna get much cheaper, uh, lodging and much cheaper activities and fewer crowds. It is not a peak season month at all in Europe, November. So and then, you know, the Ch- some of the Christmas markets, especially in Western Europe, are getting started right around then, too. They start a little earlier, usually at the end of November. And then finally, just as a way to maximize your PTO is you, most people are getting that Thursday, Friday off of work anyway. So if you wanna take, you're taking a week of PTO Wednesday to Wednesday, and you're only taking two days off, it's pretty sweet. Right. I, you could not pay me to go to, like, Amsterdam or Rome in August November, even early December sounds great. You know, the last time I was in Amsterdam it was, like, mid-November. Great time to be there. You need a coat. That's fine. I can deal with a coat. What I can't deal with is sweating shoulder-to-shoulder with every other human being in Europe and from the United States, too. Just take advantage. Zag when other people zig. Go there over Thanksgiving. I think it's a great way to try something different for the holiday. Yeah. Okay, one last sweet spot I wanna point out. Um, if you are a Thrifty Traveler Premium subscriber and you search your inbox for something like Christmas or New Year's Eve or holidays, all the flight deals that you're gonna see pop up are in business class. Kyle, can you explain to me and the listener why business-class flight deals are so prevalent during the holidays? Because all the business travelers are staying home. You know, they're home with their family over that time. They're not going on these big trips, and it just means that, you know, these airlines have seats that they need to fill. And, you know, we do still find a significant amount of especially cheap cash economy deals flying abroad, but there's a lot more business-class award inventory and even, you know, at least relatively cheap for what the base price is, um, you know, revenue fares, too, that you can book with cash. So yeah, every year like clockwork right around this time we start to see far more deals booking into business class abroad and wa- and I would say, to a lesser extent, domestically at home. Uh, you know, a first class seat to Washington, D.C. or to Savannah or San Francisco is certainly gonna be pricier than economy, but it's not seeing the same drastic price increases that we're seeing in the economy cabin over the holidays. Yeah, the gap has narrowed significantly there for sure. And it is funny when we see these business class deals and our, our team usually lists out, like, every single date that's bookable, uh, for the price that we list. So when, when you look at those lists it's amazing how much, you know, December 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th you've been seeing over the last few weeks just because that week is not a week that people are, are going to Paris for business meetings, right? It's, the, that week is usually the one, the week that they're going home to Charleston to see family. So, uh, you get, like, these special discounts or these increased availability that people should be taking advantage of, especially if you want something a little comfier to kickstart your, uh, European vacation. Solid Christmas present. Someone, someone put a business-class seat under the tree for me at Christmas I'd be pretty psyched about that. Unfortunately, I'm the one in my family who's, uh, pulling that trigger, so. Yeah, sorry. Not for me. Uh, you ready to help a listener? Okay, uh, for our listener question this week, I wanted to go with something practical for the holidays, and luckily friend of the show Grover wrote us a perfect one. But before we get to Grover, I gotta shout out my guy Sean, who I met at the MSP G Concourse Sky Club on Friday night. Super nice dude. He spotted me across the Sky Club. He did a fist pump in the air, and then he hit me with the finger guns, and I just knew I had a, a friend for life in Sean. I was so, so psyched to see Sean. He came over and said hi a little later. He was actually on a call, on a business call when he saw me, so he kinda, like, pantomimed his excitement, and then he came over and talked to me. Really cool guy. He was going to a masters water polo tournament in Atlanta, which is so cool and so rowdy. Water polo is a terrifying sport. That's, like, one of the scariest ones, and the fact that he's still doing it, good for you, Sean. I hope you guys pulled out a few Ws while you were down there. Sean, respect for both the finger guns and the water polo. I will, however, never forgive you for pumping up Gunnar's ego even more. Thanks, Sean. You're my guy. All right, uh, on to our question. Grover asks, "What is your playbook when a flight gets canceled? Whether it's an award ticket or a cash fare, do you have a standard sequence of steps you follow to maximize your chances of getting where you need to go, or do you simply curl up in the corner and poop yourself? Sorry, I couldn't resist." Yeah. That, that was Grover saying that, not you. Yeah, no. Thanks, thanks for that, Grover. Although clearly you also couldn't resist. Yeah . Thanks for that, Grover. Uh, he said, "I'd love to hear how each of you approaches last minute cancellations and any tips or tricks you've learned over the years." Kyle, what is your plan of attack? Your flight gets canceled, you get the push notification on your Flighty app, what do you do before you poop yourself? Well, you know, if I'm lucky, I'm wearing a diaper. Uh, if I'm not lucky, you just, you fan out, you do the research. And I think the best thing to do, especially whether, you know, there are signs of trouble before your trip. You know, if you're on flightaware.com and you see your home airport or your primary airline, and the airline you're flying has been canceling hundreds if not thousands of flights the day prior, you know things aren't looking great. So I would say start looking into alternatives before you actually go to the airport, like the day before. And scope out, "Okay, what options do I have to get where I need to go? Are there any nonstop options? Are there, um, you know, is, are there any award tickets that I could book as a backup if I'm really concerned?" So, you know, the d- the night before your trip, is there an award ticket you can book with your miles that you can then cancel for free if in fact you don't need it? And then day of, you have something like Flighty, which is absolutely invaluable for these kinds of situations because a push notification that you get even five minutes before your other passengers who are just relying on their Delta or American Airlines app gives you an edge. And then I think that's when you, you're armed with that information of the backup flights that you could take, and then you go to your airline. You put as many irons in the fire as possible. You start a message with your airline either via social media or a text message. You get in line at the Delta Sky Club or whichever club you can get into. Maybe you even pick up the phone and get in the queue for a call, and then you tell them exactly what you want. "I want to be booked on this airline at this time. Can you get me on that flight?" Whether it's an, a flight with that airline or s- an airline that they can interline with. So in cases of, like, extreme disruptions, American can put you on Delta and vice versa. Knowing what you're entitled to and asking for it rather than leaving it up to the airline to decide what they would like to do for you is one of the biggest superpowers in trying to make things right when things start to go wrong. Yeah. When I get this call from friends or family, like, "My flight just got canceled, I'm at the airport, what do I do?" I just say, "Go find- go get in line. Like, go find the best line you can get in for customer service, and then get your phone out. Start looking at, you know, first, what has the airline usually automatically rebooked you on?" Which is sometimes the case, and if that's acceptable to you, then you're, you're good. Otherwise, I would say, you know, start a, a text, those chat conversations. Usually the line is a lot shorter to get in touch with an agent over chat. Um, I've had a lot of success doing those too. So once you're in line, then you're at least you're covered. You know that, like, you're not waiting for nothing. There's an end goal here, and you're still working on, on yourself while you're doing that. But that's a good question, Grover, and, uh, hopefully something that people don't have to deal with over the holidays, but that some people in New York were definitely dealing with earlier this week. So a very, uh, very timely question as well. Again, if you want us to answer your questions on the show, if you have any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. To close the show, as always, we go On the Spot, and I'm putting Kyle on the spot this week. You ready? I don't know. Okay. Kyle, it's simple. It's not that hard. You can relax. Okay. Let your shoulders down a little bit. All right. All right. What's the ideal Thanksgiving trip? We talked about how going abroad for Thanksgiving is actually one of the best travel moves, so if you could line up the perfect Thanksgiving trip for this year or any year, where would you go? Hmm. The two things that come, uh, A, it's gonna be relatively short. I mean, we're talking a week at most, and maybe it's more of, like, a long weekend. So I immediately think of where's an airport abroad that I can go that is really close to the city to maximize your time on the ground? And the first one that comes to mind is Amsterdam. It's a super efficient airport. It's so close to the city. It's a cheap and quick cab ride or a train ride into the city to get to your hotel. I loved being there in November. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Um, you know, I'm also tempted by the idea of trying to get somewhere like- Florence, um, at a time when I definitely don't wanna be there during the peak season. But off-peak, that is when I wanna explore a city like that. The problem is, is, you know, especially if you're talking about a short trip, you wanna, you wanna go somewhere where you can fly nonstop to maximize your time. Connections and, you know, far-flung airports just aren't gonna work for this kinda thing, so I think I'm gonna stick with Amsterdam. Nice. Amsterdam is a really good one. Yeah. Convenient. The sh- the flight's pretty short. This ... Maybe I'm just warped by this, uh, Japan Airlines Tahiti deal, but thinking about Tahiti, especially if you're on the West Coast, that's pretty quick. It's true. And the weather's gonna be really good, and you're not Tahiti doesn't, you don't cross the date line to go to Tahiti, so you don't lose that day on the way there or back. It's, it's a pretty simple trip, honestly. It's kind of almost European for West Coasters as far as travel time, so. Are we on the West Coast? We are not. Okay. Just I wanted to confirm s- nothing had changed. We're, we're North Coast. Okay. Unfortunately. North Coast. All right. Thanks so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice. Like and subscribe to the show on YouTube as well, and send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation or who hasn't booked their Thanksgiving flights yet. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host, a man who fancies himself the supreme leader of Whoville, Gunnar Olsen. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.